Monday, July 31, 2017

Staying Central - vs. Indians (L 3-9, L 4-5, W 3-1)

Two more pitchers now White Sox extended family members now.
Friday showed us why.

It’s
tough to gauge pitchers in a purposeful tank season, for no other reason than
“why waste a major league caliber arm’s time”.
The somewhat risky (as in “who can make this tank bearable every five
days or so”) move to acquire Holland has at this point proven to not be his
needed change of pace: yesterday makes double digits in loss column, now three
losing affairs away from his career high, from his rookie year.

Grant
it, it’s the stud-loaded Indians roster in front of him and not the
consistently best in the west Texas Rangers behind him. He was a .500 pitcher
before us, but that’s the benchmark I’d like him to be hovering around. He’ll
take the mound against Toronto coming up, which should have enough starpower to
feel good about getting outs against and enough “good team in a bad year” vibe
to get a quality start against. No run support didn’t help Friday, but six runs
in barely over four innings tossed is the story.

If we
had to sum up the season so far (or at least post-Yankees trade), it’d probably
be the highlight of Infante drilling Guyer with the bases loaded. What a White
Sox way to lose one. Saturday night crowd, great giveaway jerseys everyone’s
stoked about, game close until past the point where families have stuck around…
then a bases loaded hit by pitch in the top of the ninth. If we’re going
full-blown tank and having an Airplane! movie emergency landing of a bullpen,
might as well make it entertaining while doing so. The bright spot: great
comeback against a great team, with guys who are part of the plan driving those
runs in.

Of that
plan, Sunday is why I still think Rodon will be someone that sticks around. Any
hesitancy stems from my overall skepticism of young strikeout pitchers: it
trends towards overpitching and risky pitches, and a higher pitch count early.
The bad for strikeout pitchers has been Rodon’s starts of late: 4 runs in 4
innings despite 11 strikeouts against the Cubs is the biggest example. The good
would be Sunday, going toe-to-toe with a no-hitter and making only one mistake
on that home run ball. Wins and losses don’t matter anyway, and now’s the time
for him to work out any kinks: he’s not the Sox child prodigy anymore, but
barring injury and bad habits, I’d expect him in for the long haul.

Moncada
watch: thought he was ok in the cleanup spot. I don’t necessarily see that
being where he winds up, but I’ll take doubles and dingers with men on. Once we
have our trying to win baseball games roster I imagine he’ll take second in the
lineup: that vision at the plate is no joke. For now let’s ride Sensai Saladino
out while we have him.

Lastly,
Cowboy Melky, we hardly knew ye. A big bright spot in the lineup when we needed
him most. Makes sense for the Royals in their last dance with these champs
season. The versatility of him at the plate makes him a pretty easy fit in most
rosters, and it’d be interesting to see if he’s the spark they need to make the
Tribe sweat a little.

Our
return, meanwhile:

A.J. Puckett

Hovering around .500 in
high-A. Seems to eat up a decent amount of innings and keep the ball in the
park. Not sure where he falls into the 2020 plan at age 22.

Can
never have too many pitching prospects, which is how the trade was made. A lot of the reactions to the more recent
trades has been apathy in regards to the return on them. A fair enough response
given the absolutely massive returns on the Sale, Eaton, and Quintana trades.
Melky Cabrera also isn’t an Adam Eaton: a proven but aging slugger won’t get
the same return as a young, speedy juggernaut with a cannon of an arm. Hahn’s master
plan is all but in place, and any recent deal is to swap out players that won’t
be part of it. Melky, sadly, was the next one to fall into this category.

He was probably the most realiable player on an unreliable team his time here. Any vet who stuck with us these past couple years deserves a lot of props. Go make the Central race we're out of a little more interesting, Cowboy.